Morning Edition News BriefingIn today's news, former Rep. Dick Armey offers some tough love for his GOP colleagues; an Iraq war vet running for Congress in Pennsylvania suggests a timeline for pulling out; and Clint Eastwood hopes to make his film Flags of Our Fathers pirate proof.

Morning Edition News Briefing

"They have compromised their agenda," Dick Armey says of his old Republican colleagues in Congress.

The former House majority leader spoke from a Texas restaurant that serves as his informal office.

He says Republicans "pandered" to religious conservatives to keep power, which they might lose anyway.

"I remember sitting at the leadership table long before I left Congress, and I wrote this note to myself. I said every week we come into Washington, we do things we ought not to be doing in order to stay in the majority, so we can do things we know are good for the country. But we never get around to the latter."

It's the latest sign of disappointment from a Republican revolutionary. In a new book called Hubris, by two noted Washington journalists, Armey is quoted critiquing Vice President Cheney for overselling the war in Iraq.

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These days the White House is warning against a deadline for leaving Iraq, which is not stopping Patrick Murphy.

The Iraq war vet, running for Congress as a Pennsylvania Democrat, wants "a 12-month timeline to show the Iraqis they need to come off the sidelines."